Matt Hagan admits to getting somewhat animated when he practices on a racing simulator in his transporter during downtime at races.

Complete with steering wheel, fuel pedal, brake handle and starting tree, the simulator is the place to be around the Don Schumacher Racing trailers, and generally draws a crowd on rainy days. The noisiest participant is almost always the simulator's owner.

"I get pretty pumped up," said Hagan, the Funny Car leader heading into the Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals this weekend at Indianapolis. "It's about repetition. Everything in drag racing is about repetition. If I practice that way, I'm going to do it that way."

But most drivers try to approach the starting line with a calm attitude, the opposite of Hagan's fiery approach.

"People ask me, 'Why are you so fired up?'" Hagan told USA TODAY Sports. "I can't help it. I get excited about winning. To just go out there quietly doesn't do it for me. It's an exciting thing to do for a living."

What he's done this year has his entire team excited. After winning the 2011 Funny Car championship, he failed to make the top 10 that comprises the Countdown to the Championship, the six-race playoff that determines the champion in each category of the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series.

This year, he's back on top.

"We came out after the championship and let it get the best of us," Hagan says of the team's 2012 effort. "We didn't stay humble like we should have. What had worked for us before wasn't working for us anymore. ... It cost us our defense of the championship."

A 30-year-old cattle farmer from Christiansburg, Va., Hagan has won five events and holds a 124-point lead over teammate Ron Capps.

"This deal is for real," Hagan says. "We have so much going our way right now and we're having so much fun doing it. Our confidence is back. I feel like a kid in a candy store, man."

In 2011, Hagan won two events (Charlotte and Pomona) and recorded the first sub-4-second pass elapsed time in Funny Car history (3.995 seconds). Last season, he didn't win a final round and lost in the first round five times.

"For us, it changed so quickly," Hagan says. "That was a good thing. It made me respect the hard work that goes into it. Dickie has done a phenomenal job. Two weeks before the season, we'd never run a car. Everybody had their jobs, but people had to learn what to do."

With Venables and assistant crew chief Mike Knudsen leading the way, Hagan is expected to easily clinch the No. 1 Funny Car berth for the Countdown.

"These guys really stepped up," Hagan says. "I've never had a crew that has this kind of charisma. They're hungry and excited."

But whenever they have nothing better to do, they gather around the simulator and hold their own eliminations. There's only one thing wrong with that. The last time they did so, Venables won.